Elite Dangerous Update Brings Loot, Crafting and Missions changes

Elite Dangerous The 1.6 and The Engineers (2.1) beta is live. The new Elite Dangerous update brings headline changes to loot, crafting, and missions. Make sure you have the latest client version installed for the beta.

Developers have been working hard to bring you a massive list of changes, tweaks and improvements for Elite Dangerous. The changelog is massive and offers a very lenghty read to players.

– Missions
– New mission board added
– Mission board contacts added
– Contacts have their appearance deterministically generated to reflect various key factors
– Mission givers have a welcome message that reflects the state of the minor faction, their tone and relationship with player
– Display minor faction recovering and pending states
– Missions are now rated by rank, not gated by them
– Reason for mission generation now added as needed
– USSs for missions now positioned in specific locations as appropriate
– Difficulty of missions is factored into reputation requirements (as well as rank)
– Added additional scenarios for missions
– Mission UI now supports showing specific mission ranks (combat/trade/exploration)
– Reward balance pass for missions
– Commodities can be awarded from missions
– Loot items can be awarded from missions
– Special treasure locations can be awarded by completing missions
– Reveal the location of a mission USS when the body is discovery-scanned (or you scan the nav beacon)
– Mission contacts remember if they have encountered you before
– Updated scenarios for missions
– Added new planetary mission types
– Added new scan mission types
– Outfitting UI redux
– Updated hangar cameras to fit new outfitting UI
– Some locations can have unique vouchers from scanning for larger rewards that can’t be ‘scummed’
– Added huge beam laser
– Added huge pulse laser
– Added huge multi-cannon
– Added large multi-cannon
– Added enhanced performance size 2 and 3 drive modules
– Added VFX scaling for weapon size and damage
– Added huge gimball mount
– Bookmarks: adding bookmark feature to galaxy map and system map. Player is now able to save specific locations (systems, star, planet, stations, surface settlement)
– Added collapsing sections to options screen
– Community goal markers added to galaxy map
– Minor faction state filters added to galaxy map
– Mining scenarios can now spawn in icy rings
– New mining commodities added
– Add traffic density system for generating USSs
– Shipping lanes are created between the primary star, stations, and planets with settlements. Shipping lanes that are too similar to others, or too short, are removed
– Traffic density is calculated based on shipping lane, station and settled planet proximity. This traffic density value alters the probability of USSs
– If you scan a body that has a mission POI on it, the POI will be revealed. The scan can come from the discovery scanner, or from scanning a nav beacon
– Changed data scans to be unique per location, so they cannot be continuously rescanned
– Unlinked minor faction reputation from their parent major faction reputation, now you will be neutral with an Empire minor faction even if you are allied with the Empire major faction
– Added the ability to scan a nav beacon to get the system exploration data for that system
– Added a ‘cordial’ minor faction reputation level
– Allow cargo to be transferred to a newly bought ship, if it has adequate cargo space
– Add Chopper’s Orbital to Phiince system
– Updated translations
– Added named planets from Charity stream
– Added new player group minor faction descriptions
– Player inbox will hold a message until it has been deleted, or 30 days old
– Added Bluford Orbital to LHS 3447
– Canonn Research space science outpost added to COL 285 SECTOR IX-T D3-
– Overhaul & cleanup of how module penetration behaves, to allow multiple hits and various styles of AOE damage. All missiles now use external damage spheres
– Clock added to cockpit’s info panel
– Added missing backer station
– Added option to reduce camera shake

– Defensive code for preventing crash when starting binding preset is invalid
– Fix crash in nonotonic timer
– Fix zero health error with nav beacon
– Don’t throw an error when loading straight to insurance screen
– Fix an error that happens when loading into a session with someone with a shield bank on cooldown
– Fix error when spawning POIs
– Fix a rare crash bug with terrain height map handling (will also benefit load times)
– Don’t crash if the cancel button is pressed multiple times in the bindings screen
– Prevent drone control module from possibly being able to shut down while holding game object handles to drones
– Don’t crash if there is an overflow for ship lighting rigs
– Fix for error with zero length vector on dust particle lighting#
– Prevent soft locks on start-up for terrain disabled systems
– Fix memory leak in Drone Component if a drone is never activated before being destroyed
– Fix some terraformable meta data mismatches
– Fix crash cancelling control binding
– Fix crash with prospector drone
– Fix Goliath crime component crash
– Added guards to help prevent a Capital Ship related crash
– Ensure that the variable for boost cost is initialised to something valid, in case planet gravity is not active
– Fix crash in drone control module
– Fix computational shape error
– Fix for crash when approaching some settlements
– Fix for AI fighter manager crash
– Fix a crash in system generation for “Sidgoe LX-S c17-0”
– Dont try to generate systems for child stars, it can crash due the child star not having its own set of meta data
– Fix some of the errors about physics objects out of range when dropping out of supercruise
– Stop the conflict target generator from crashing in the event that a scenario is featuring a conflict with a minor faction we don’t know about
– Fix an error on destruction of a ship in CQC
– Make sure that any location objects are destroyed before removing the player
– Fix a crash when the Goliath skimmer shields reform
– Hammering the back button in the CQC menus should no longer throw an error
– Fix an issue where a Protoplanetary Disk was initiated twice
– Fix Radeon 7000s crash with terrain shadow generation
– Fix a server crash for an odd edge case of where a player is ready in a proving ground that doesn’t know about them

GENERAL TWEAKS & FIXES

– Fixed several region permits not working, allowing players to enter restricted regions of space. This could result in some players finding themselves trapped in restricted space, unable to jump out, which will have to be handed on a case-by-case basis
– Relocate Commanders affected by galactic region permits

UI:

– Prevented CMDR name from offsetting when in Russian
– Scaled the cargo-canister rack schematic to the correct size
– Adjusted the footer positions in the cockpit panels, they were off by a few pixels
– Added simple OS message box report for when a save operation fails
– Synthesis quality options do not cycle around fixed
– Added an unpowered state for weapons in Cockpit UI
– Adjusted text field widths ever so slightly in cargo menu
– Misleading wanted status and bounty message on vacant player ships
– Nominate screen sticks on screen if exited by pressing B
– Selling cartographics data does not allow you to select close on the menu when you have a first discovery bonus fixed
– Fix some wrongly sorted UI render layers
– System addresses hovered by pad/keyboard & mouse are now linked so that mouse movement won’t hide the info popup after having used pad/keyboard to select a system
– Discrepancy between material name shown on contact list and when targeting/recovering the mineral fixed
– System map : making sure the system map address is reset when pressing back button to avoid displaying the map for another system when using the shortcut or the cockpit button
– In the insurance screen, only show the free ship option as an alternative to rejoining current ship when the player has fines to pay in their current ship’s jurisdiction
– Ammo store shouldn’t show drones as purchasable if there is no stock
– Fix for missing currency formatting on data link voucher rewards
– Fix calculating the distance to a sensor contact
– When we’re at max rank, the stats should consider rank progress to be 0%
– Use “Total ship cost” not “Total cost” in the insurance screen to make it less misleading; the actual total cost would include paying off fines
– New layout for options screen
– Tone down the intensity of the white target GUI elements so that they do not over-bloom
– Add distances to wakes targeted by the player
– Fixed ‘Back’ input not working on the cockpit chat panel
– Fixed the ship schematic in the functions tab from ‘drifting’
– “Launch” training messages saying “Not Bound” instead of the bound key
– Increased the minimum size for moons on the scanner in order to not collapse tiny moons into just one pixel
– Display the data micro resource inventory in the inventory panel
– Change the default number of items per page in Exploration selling from 20 to 50 following from server-side optimisations that make this plausible
– Systems that require a permit no longer highlighted in red on the Navigation panel
– Synced the wait time displayed on the quit game dialog with the underlying danger timer
– Fix some Commander stats not updating correctly for certain mission types or when destroying skimmers
– Fix displaying First Discovery names too many times when Commanders in a Wing claimed first discovery

Crimes:

– Fixed assault bounties not being applied when “Report Crimes Against Me” is off and turned on mid fight
– Issue was that pirate hunter hostile could spawn in a polity different from where the player drops out; if that polity is lawless no bounty would be given to the pirate – now fixed

Galaxy Map:

– Galaxy map now remembers the previous Cargo Mass slider setting, unless enough real cargo is added to the ship to exceed the slider setting
– Fix system map not remembering which tab you were on
– Planetary map: fixing coordinates used for surface settlements positioning and player ship position
– Galaxy Map: It is not that obvious what is selected when using the controller on the galaxy map fixed
– Galaxy Map: Pledge icon now lines up following the power’s name fixed
– System Map: System map “Locale” scroll moves very slowly with mouse wheel fixed
– Fix performance spike in galaxy and system map pop ups
– Potential fix for the ring appearing sometimes in the system map
– Fixed the visibility routine for bodies in system map doesn’t allow unexplored bodies to be show when going back from planetary map
– Safety fixes for input bindings: ConfigOptions returns the default option if its asked for the current options when it has an invalid index
– System map is now properly initialised when a route is a plotted in the targeted system
– Don’t re-plot the current route just because the Galaxy Map is opened. Fixes the route being forgotten sometimes if viewing the galaxy map during FSD charge, and helps to avoid forgetting the in-system target at the end of the route
– The default light for black hole systems in the system map was not giving the desired result – A cold, dim blueish light is now substituted as the default
– Improved system map load time
– Fix the issue with the latitude being calculated negative. i.e. the North Pole was at latitude -90 when it should have been at +90
– Galaxy map: showing controlling faction state in the galaxy map popup, making sure “none” is displayed when primary minor faction is no particular state
– When searching for a system name, trim whitespace off the end of the search as some people use methods which automatically place whitespace on the end which is preventing the search from working
– Added clear route button for any waypoint of an active route
– Fixed route plotting issues when a system is actually unreachable : the route plot will fail, but the button will become available again, displaying a sub title : “route plotting failed”
– Galaxy Map population sliders don’t update their position dynamically when using a control pad

Ships:

– Players are no longer awarded bounty vouchers for destroying their own ship while in a vehicle
– Remove a now obsolete angular velocity clamp that only applies in FAOff
– The classified camera no longer resets the player’s throttle
– Shield cell banks now fire one at a time when triggered using the shield cell bank hotkey (similar to heatsinks)
– The Automated Field Maintenance Unit can no longer be repaired unless there are more than one active repair units
– Fixed error from firing heatsinks in super cruise
– Scanner zoom level is now preserved when entering and leaving FSD
– Silent running is now disabled when the docking computer is activated
– Player’s ship shields should recharge while player is in SRV
– Disabled the Speeding UI warning while docked
– Fixed the photo camera not turning when cockpit headlook is toggled on
– Fix for the landing silhouette on the terrain schematics flipping to an X axis rotation when there’s no altitude raycast result available
– Made the compass on the GUI align correctly with the nav marker at Nav Beacons and other locations
– Player ship no longer inappropriately accelerates automatically to max speed under certain conditions
– Hardpoints can no longer be deployed while in supercruise. This doesn’t affect the usage of scanners and interdictors etc
– The photo camera is now disabled if the player’s ship is being interdicted
– Photo camera popup can now be closed using the key bound to UI Select
– Proximity alarm is no longer triggered by projectiles launched by their owning ship
– Ships can land on top of each other when recalled in close proximity on a planet fixed
– Fix problem with evaluating landing area where ships would time out trying to land because their landing gear took more than 10 seconds to deploy
– Holding the vertical thrust input while launching from a landing pad will now work properly (you no longer have to release the input and re-apply it)
– Fixed incorrect super cruise flight model parameters for Federal Gunship
– Zero thrust on start of evaluating landing area as a previous fly to target might result in a spinning ship during this stage of approach
– Make sure that ships called in to land can take off if they landed
– Fixed thruster VFX playing while ships are landed
– It is no longer possible for a docked ship to commit a ramming crime
– Rebalanced heat efficiency of the Fer de Lance to offset the increased power plant change
– Landing gear doors are now initialised open if you load in to the game docked
– Cutter occasionally bounces off the surface when recalled fixed
– Update the logic for collision damage between ships and canisters so that larger ships don’t insta-kill canisters on contact
– Review damage forwarded to the cockpit from hull – previously going in infrequent large lumps (and too fast overall) now occurs is more frequent but much much smaller amounts
– Ships can no longer enter super cruise if their thrusters are disabled
– Remove a stray transform set meaning if you hit a planet at much more than 0.1C you had a tendancy to drop out in it
– Tweak the limits on headlook angles to make what you can see appear more natural (you can no longer see where your neck ought to be, for instance)
– Ensure cargo is transferred when re-buying a ship from an orphaned SRV
– Be a little bit more forgiving for surface landings that don’t meet a decent standard
– Fix minimum refuel calculation when using multiple fuel tanks

NPCs:

– Fix bad bay numbers in “parking permission granted” messages
– Attacking something that you own is legal and won’t make it hate you
– Added Shield Cell Banks onto the targetable modules list. Should now appear on the subtargets list if a ship has them installed and be targetable
– Authority issue between two players at POI’s fixed
– Stop NPC ships from dropping out immediately upon spawning in supercruise
– Fix some NPC docking queue issues
– Stop docked player ships that are near the docking shared path from blocking AI docking/launching
– Scanning NPCs shouldn’t boost if they don’t have time to slow down
– Fixed parked AI ships deploying their hardpoints while docked
– Police will destroy any loose illegal cargo after an interdiction, to stop the player from ejecting it and then re-collecting after interdiction
– Fix a few issues to do with chasers respawning when they shouldn’t
– When respawning persistent AI hunters, check to see if we’re in an unpopulated system beyond a set distance (500LY) from the nearest capital, and if we are, only spawn the chasers 50% of the time; this will get rerun each time we change between normal space and supercruise so the odds of the hunters persisting will diminish
– Updating certain player events so they don’t appear in Anarchy systems, anything with authority, military or search & rescue ships in
– Fix NPC ships failing to launch from settlements
– Smooth out AI difficulty curve
– Improve AI for higher ranked NPCs
– Improve reliability for docking computer with the Cutter
– Don’t allow vacant ships to commit crimes
– Make lower level NPCs a bit easier to chase
– Try to prevent NPCs stopping in space for no reason
– Improve docking computer behaviour near planet surfaces
– Optimise obstruction avoidance
– NPC spawned with no shields and broken AI fixed
– Slow down to engage Docking Computer message remains after cancelling docking request fixed
– NPC AI continues to fire hatch breaker even when player has no cargo and hatch is powered down fixed
– Improved use of missiles and torpedoes by NPCs
– Stop NPCs rolling on the spot
– Improve AI targeting of cargo canisters
– Docking computer forces you to collide with station on entry fixed
– Don’t try and spawn ships with “Military Planet Dock”, military ships don’t dock. Also turn on powerplay ships at stations
– Powerplay ships can now be encountered in normal space
– Make sure that the police patrolling the station will be of the same faction as the station
– Fix ship vs environment collisions so that AI-controlled ships take damage again
– AI shouldn’t be trying to manually fire weapons that are on auto fire – it causes them to fire in really odd directions
– Fix issues with inconsistent spawning. In particular, the issue with not all the cargo drops always spawning
– Only spawn pirates, power pirates and power assassins at anarchy stations
– Use local polity, not star polity, when determining ship composition at ports
– Added in more power specific chatter for Power Pirates. These guys are essentially privateers, paid to rob people, so placed the emphasis more on it being a job
– Increased variety for NPC paths approaching surface ports and outposts
– Dropping the min cargo and bounty values for a hunter to appear in
– Bumped up the percentage chance of the chasers appearing based on security
– Added the Viper MkIV to the police archetype
– Increase variety for ship departure behaviour on surface ports
– Remove scan behaviours from pirates and bounty hunters when around ports/outposts/settlements, i.e. when docking, doing a lift off, or travelling across the surface before jumping
– Killing an NPCs powerplant does not cause them to fall to the surface
– Minimum threat value for ambient supercruise police ships based on system security level
– Fix trespass zone orientation causing incorrect rendering on the scanner
– Fix duplicate spawning of chasing ships after interdiction
– Make state based trader NPCs have the same faction on multiple visits
– Slightly altered the Police Viper score values so that Viper’s appear when an investigation is called, rather than an eagle
– Stop AI (often police) from scanning ships (particularly players) when docked at a station/outpost
– Fixes to AI scanning players with silent running enabled
– change hive mind reinforcement timer to be banded based on security level
– “In trouble” flee behaviour update – make decisions based on target
– AI should use Fragmentation Cannons at effective range, rather than at maximum range
– NPC’s Drives do not malfunction when damaged
– Improved how NPC wing members operate with each other
– Check if a player has permission to access Horizons content before adding settlements to the list of targetable locations
– NPCs now have an automatic loadout system based on the archetype, ranks, ships and other factors
– Ships at range struggle with weapon minimum distances, don’t fire enough/at all fixed
– If we’ve blocked NPCs from spawning due to multiple hunter hostile restrictions, check regularly to see if these restrictions no longer apply and then spawn

Missions:

– Mission giver faction now has its type set properly
– Rank missions should no longer instantly fail for no apparent reason
– Elite Piracy and Founder Smuggling missions should no longer instantly fail for no apparent reason
– Added new ‘Wanted’ Smuggler Maint to prevent Hostage Rescue missions resulting in a criminal act
– Multi-cargo contract elements now have messages. and cargo types can be checked
– Balance ranks missions are generated for
– Salvage Legal missions should’ve been using mission specific cargo
– When a mission attempts to send an inbox message, if the player currently has that inbox message, we will not push a new message onto the inbox
– Reduce mission limit to 20
– Improve checks for player’s cargo for mission advance
– Fix for mission specific cargo not being dropped
– Add ‘Mission detected’ text to mission based USSs
– Change the Reputation Difficulty Scalar to be relative to player’s reputation with a given faction
– Fix an issue where the USS wasn’t actually being marked as belonging to a mission
– If a USS for a specific mission already exists, don’t spawn another
– Ensuring rescue mission cargo is not marked as stolen when liberated
– Reduced time before targets spawn in Piracy and Rescue mission. Targets will now appear between 10 and 30 minutes from mission generation
– Don’t send people to settlements which don’t have ports in missions
– Don’t send people to the same market they are requesting a mission from
– Authority mission wrinkles shouldn’t occur in anarchies
– Don’t add major faction rep to minor faction rep when working out player rep
– Mission targets in settlements now don’t have a range limit for displaying as contacts, also when targeted they will show as a mission target
– If there are no missions, give text which tells players what other things they could do to help
– Allow NPC ships to dump mission specific cargo
– Allow inbox messages to obfuscate the sender for black ops
– Add an introductory mission for new starters
– Refresh the inbox when completing a mission, so mission tipoffs are immediately visible
– If a mission requires you to go to a body, then display the mission marker for that body in the system map
– Mission board factions now ordered such that factions with mission hand-ins are at the top

Space Scenarios:

– Distress call scenario fixes
– Prevent training level asteroids from jumping about when the game is unpaused
– Increased ship variation for terrorist leader
– Terrorist archetype now prioritises military targets
– Update spawning ambient AI in normal space, and add powerplay ships when at stations, nav beacons and RES locations
– Increased ship variety for political assassination targets
– Make more explicit use of security levels for generating police in supercruise
– Fix for dropping out at a USS not spawning the USS objects
– Added with bodyguard variants of trader and smuggler scenarios for missions
– Added more player events to scenarios
– Change how USSs are spawned so it is no longer simply time based, location is a factor
– Add a sine wave signal to POI turrets
– Add a clamp to prevent wars in systems with few planets creating no conflict zones
– Fixes to loadouts and behaviours in the rescue scenarios
– Fixed credit reward for routing a cap ship in war zones to 150000
– Show “shipping lane” instead of “deep space” when in supercruise in a shipping lane

Surface Scenarios/POIs

– Prevent collectibles on surface falling through the floor for non-authority clients
– Fixed an issue where materials would sometimes spawn inside a rock and be untargetable
– Settlement generator health cannot longer go into negative values
– Fix broken skimmer disable points on two settlements
– Unable to scan data points after other player completes settlement fixed
– Fix an issue causing POIs to spawn on steep parts of terrain when they shouldn’t be
– Reduce fall off point for deep space POIs so human debris doesn’t get found so far out
– Settlement sentry skimmers should avoid crashing into player ships
– Fix for canisters in POIs not replicating
– Don’t try to render POIs when the sensors are off
– Make all Skimmers and POI objects detectable by ground sensors only by default, we don’t want ships picking them off from the skies without having to work for it. Note that anything firing at the player will still show up and be target-able back – note that POIs can still be discovered from ships
– Collisions with skimmers are now also extremely disruptive to ships, hitting one will cause a temporarily loss of drives and shields – don’t do it
– Extend time ships can fly over settlements before they get fines and bounties
– Cargo in a POI now has the correct legality flag set and is also marked as mission cargo if needed
– Settlement point defence capability upgraded
– Lower range at which buggy can target things
– Tweak skimmer armour resistances for boss
– Refresh vouchers when claiming a scan, so we can immediately see the voucher that was generated
– Don’t allow skimmers to respond to accidental hits from their allied turrets
– Added a beacon light to certain data links so that players are attracted to them
– Skimmer disablers added
– Added point defence systems for settlements and bases
– If you leave a trespass zone while hostile, show a different message than leaving it while not hostile

– Fixed issue with incorrect firing mode assigned to gimballed fragment cannons
– Increased the heat damage of small beam laser slightly
– Explosive damage more effective against shield generators
– Increased torpedo damage
– Increased mine ammo capacity and hardness piercing
– Increased damage from missiles
– Increased ammo capacity for dumbfire missiles
– Re-evaluate default missile guidance parameters so that they make more use of lookahead further out
– Reduce the splash damage for dumbfire missiles so they’re not overpowered against surface targets
– Fixed hardpoints deployed audio being spammed by ships that are in the process of landing/docking
– Point Defense Turrets should only damage their target or submunitions
– Fix Point Defense Turret parameters so they’re a bit more accurate
– Chaff no longer blocks advanced scans and so is less of a catch-all defence
– Rebalanced torpedoes to be much tougher but slower
– Tweaked point defence turrets to fix a fire rate issue and increased hardness piercing of dumb fire missiles
– Make sure that beam weapons don’t cause crimes when they’re not supposed to
– Stop submunitions being teleported for a frame in some circumstances
– Target-Only turret mode changes:
– It will now stop firing when blocked correctly, and can be activated while blocked and will not fire until the shot is clear
– Target Only now has the same rules as Fire At Will and cannot cause crimes under any circumstances when accidentally hitting things other than the intended target. Crimes for hitting the intended target apply as normal
– Correct an exploit where rapidly switching target several times during a bullets’ flight would allow damaging a target without aggro
– Replace legacy weapon variants with their defaults, along with some credits and materials to offset the inconvenience
– Increase heat generated per shot on rail guns
– Reduce heat sink ammo by one

Controls:

– Removed gamepad controls from keyboard and mouse scheme
– Fix a few errors in the PS3 control scheme files
– Removed some telemetry that is sent when every someone changes a control binding
– Axis bindings were being implicitly cast to button bindings fixed
– Turned off Yaw into Roll by default on controller schemes
– Mouse cursor visible when using HOTAS
– Don’t force rotation correction on when we land on the planet surface – it only makes sense in a space station
– Fix being unable to use control keys to look at the cockpit panels whilst launching from dock
– Fixed throttle setting itself to zero when exiting from hyperspace or super cruise while the game doesn’t have focus
– Add info message on cargo scoop retraction
– Fix an issue where is you have multiple Xbox controllers, only one of the controllers will work
– Fixed several issues with how the SRV was handling mouse input
– Added controller preset for Thrustmaster HOTAS 4

Galactic Simulation:

– Fix an issue when you had exactly -35 rep, it couldn’t work out your relationship
– Added investment faction state
– Rebalance how player actions and missions count towards the star system’s influence caps for the day
– Rebalance how player actions and missions contribute towards faction state and influence buckets
– Additional factors now contribute towards outbreak and famine’s buckets
– Added a new “Retreat” state for factions with low influence levels not in their home system
– Significantly changed the “Expanded” state. The Faction’s search for another system is now triggered at the end of the expansion’s active phase. If the surrounding systems are full, then an expansion might trigger an invasion war if an appropriate defender can be found.
– Added new “Investment” state for factions that have failed to expand, which significantly increases development level for a short time and lets the Faction search a bit further away when they next expand
– The “Lockdown” state now locks down many station services for affected Factions, allowing Commanders to concentrate on helping those Factions’ crime control efforts
– Conflicts should now be easier to win, with rebalanced effects of combat actions during conflicts.
– War now only needs a 5% influence difference to win. Civil War and Elections remain at 3%
– When assigning the spoils of war, Ports & Stations that ships can dock at, are now considered more valuable than Planetary Settlements
– Send out Inbox messages when Commander reputation changes past each threshold
– Superpower reputation now affects the rate of change of affiliated Faction reputation
– Fix background sim consequences for crimes other than piracy or murder and to consider both the victim faction and the faction that controls the jurisdiction of any crime
– Local news articles have been improved for many states, including which system a Faction has just expanded into!
– Fixed localisation for Commodity and Ship descriptions in local news reports

– Fixed not being able to defect away from dead powers
– Removed warning about assassins and power change cooldown when defecting away from a dead power – there’s no penalty to defection here
– Fix Powerplay preparation costs varying during a cycle when Starsystem population varies
– Fix when choosing actions to oppose a Power. Independent powers should now always use the hostile variants against each other in all circumstances.
– Reactivate Powerplay actions in starsystems that have population but no planets

– Added suspension travel prediction to SRV physics
– After any outfitting web request, update the module boost states from the ship state that the server returns
– Fix for incorrect SRV shadows
– SRV fuel bars do not update in your role panel fixed
– Disabling plot route / select buttons in galaxy map when player is in a SRV
– SRVs can no longer be deployed when their respective Vehicle Bays are disabled
– The select highest threat hotkey can now lock onto turrets and skimmers
– Fixed the cargo scoop hotkey not working in an SRV when close to the ship
– The SRV can no longer be deployed when the ship is in the middle of launching from a port
– The SRV is now refuelled when it docks at a port
– Fix for data link scanner not scanning when the option ‘Firing deploys hardpoints’ is disabled
– Prevent turret mode being accessible via roles panel when under the ship (or otherwise blocked)
– With drive assist on, moving off forwards at slow speed has long reaction time
– Fix for vehicle turret camera clipping when at max pitch angle
– Drive assist doesn’t engage gear to react to throttle if buggy is slowly sliding fixed
– Fix for the buggy rolling when it shouldn’t, automatic handbrake only disengages when a drive/reverse input is received
– Ship oxygen supply no longer depletes while the player is out of the ship (i.e. in a buggy)
– Fix detection of high-speed collisions when two buggies collide
– Fixed wheel motion blur rendering
– Fixed Forward Only throttle issues with dead zones on the buggy
– Fix incorrect physics collisions with wheels
– When broadcasting text chat to /local, send to all ships/vehicles in the current session, regardless of range, visibility, etc (SRVs were not previously receiving chat from ships)
– Tri-mesh vs. wheel stability improvements, wheels won’t clip through walls anymore, rolling looks better
– Now if your ship makes contact with your buggy while landing, it’ll fly away. If you drive under the feet of someone elses landing ship, it’ll crush you
– Added tyre tracks
– Fixed SRV turret mouse pitch axis being inverted by default
– Allow transfer of stolen cargo from buggy to ship
– Incorrect distance shown from targeted location after deploying SRV fixed
– Fixed buggy wheel thrusters not animating while in the photo camera
– The Turret mode does not scan targets. Meaning you have no information of health or shields – fixed
– Added support for dirtying the buggy wheels according to the planet’s dust colour
– Fixed the buggy trying to run away while the game is paused or doesn’t have focus
– Fixed SRVs getting stuck in the cargo bay when deploying from the perspective of other clients
– Role panel shows 0 buggys available when you restock srv via the restock screen fixed
– Fixed the buggy going rogue while the photo camera is active during buggy deployment
– Fixed the throttle showing negative zero while stationary and improved buggy behaviour while the photo camera is active
– Fixed dumping cargo near a settlement in a buggy not giving the player a fine
– Fixed escape menu moving during the vehicle boarding animation
– Fixed Radar contacts being visible in the SRV while in turret mode
– Raise up the buggy’s garage start position by a couple of metres, to stop it getting embedded in the floor in some garages
– Tweak vehicle cargo hatch behaviour to enable “Cargo Acquired” message in the SRV
– Buggy Turret UI is inconsistent when targeting things fixed
– Small modification to the SRV headlights so that they don’t bleach out the ground so much on some planets
– Add door change messages to the SRV to match what the ship has. Especially useful when opening/closing the cargo scoop while in turret mode
– Let player park buggy in any garage, not just the one for the ship’s landing pad. Use compass to lead them to the nearest one
– Fix unsold exploration data and vouchers not always being removed when dying in an SRV and the parent ship has been destroyed

Synthesis

– Remove the “No Effect”, “Superseded” and “Boost Active” synthesis states, so a synthesis is always available as long as you have the materials for it and you are in the appropriate vessel
– When scanning a micro resource outcrop, up the maximum amount of different types the scan message can display from 4 to 6
– Fix large calibre munitions synthesis not being applicable to cannons
– When applying synthesis boost to the buggy’s armour, decrease the damage multiplier rather than increasing it

Supercruise:

– Smooth some issues with supercruise transition
– Made the drop out into glide mode smoother, so there is no teleport backwards
– Speed/distance restrictions for dropping from supercruise now scale with how strong the local gravity influence is – the further from bodies the easier it is to drop out. Statios and most scenarios won’t be majorly affected, but things like USSes that appear in deep space, and some nav beacons are much easier to drop at
– Fixed the safe for drop message not appearing when entering supercrusie in a safe to drop state

Wings:

– Prevent dropping at wing beacons inside asteroids
– Feedback is now given to the player if they send a wing invite to a player already in a wing
– Always show wing commander names above their ships, regardless of them being targeted or not
– Fix when issuing trade dividend vouchers to wing members
– Fix for for a wing member showing as destroyed briefly when they transition to/from supercruise

Drones/Limpets:

– Prospector limpet drone replacement order gets stuck fixed
– Fixed refinery bin list jumping up and down when collecting fragments that are automatically removed from the hopper
– Stop jumping when non-auth drones receive a position update via the network
– Non targeted collection drones should try to return to their ship and find another target
– Drone controller modules are no longer visible on the HUD arcs unless assigned to an active firegroup
– Limpets can now deliver cargo to a hatch which is trying to be any of the 4 open states, rather than having to wait on the door to cycle back to the open scooping state
– Fixed bug where roaming collector drones would re-build after authority transfer as single target drones
– Don’t allow further drone launches while another drone controller on the same ship is busy launching a drone
– Prospectors now display asteroid material content as high, medium or low

Stations:

– Shooting a station module will now result in the station registering the hit and becoming hostile
– Improved LODs on the holo adverts outside of stations
– Fix LOD pop on station storage pods caused by greebles being used for large areas of geometry
– Fix LOD pop on station fusion reactor caused by greebles being used for large areas of geometry
– Fixed and smoothed landing pad animations
– Improved textures in hanger to receive lighting correctly
– Fix station name in chat panel
– Fix for matchmaking when starting docked at a surface settlement: players were always starting in a ‘fresh’ island
– Improved the issue of the station inner dock popping into view
– Add fog to station interior
– Fix the occasional loading into the wrong docking bay
– Added a check if the ship is clear of any landing bays, before classing the ship as “left the station”
– Stations will no longer let you dock if the controlling faction dislikes you

Arena:

– Don’t start the CQC backfill matchmaking check timer if we’re not in a CQC game yet
– If someone joins a CQC match when the current game has less than 1 minute left, then have them wait on the lobby screen for the next match instead of joining a game about to end
– Added scaling to the schematic models in the empire fighter cockpit
– Fix a possible timing issue where the replication of CQC objects could come out of order, this would cause the splash at the end of a game to show an incorrect result, but the score summary screen which appears later would be correct
– Make sure we don’t mark a CQC game as about to end when it’s in the loading state
– Make sure we keep hold of the spawn point claim in CQC until either we move off the spawn point or we get destroyed, so we don’t allow a spawn in the same location
– Fixed issue of not being able to focus on party elements in UI
– Fix an issue with accepting an invite from a player that has since disconnected from you
– Cancel pending lobby invites when we enter matchmaking – players can’t join lobbies that are in the middle of matchmaking, so the invite should be invalidated at this point
– Adjusted how teams are set up in CQC games so make them more balanced
– Save the CQC loadouts when you leave the ship select and loadout edit screens, instead of just when we quit the game
– Fix for CQC disconnect bug caused by incorrectly aligned timeouts
– Moved the animating doors on the asteroids map so there isn’t a gap that the player can fly through
– Added an extra check to the Matchmaking Lobby to try and catch an odd case of someone not quitting the game after the match has ended
– Make sure we set the CQC user presence string when we start loading into the CQC menu, otherwise it will say we are in open play when we are on the loading screen
– If we detect a CQC game is imbalanced (i.e. only 1 person in deathmatch or a 3v1 in team games) the it will start a 30 second countdown to end the game early. This countdown will be cancelled if someone else joins and balances the game out a bit
– We now give players notifications for when someone joins/leaves/disconnects from the same CQC match that they are in
– Fix drive placement/damagability on empire fighter drives
– Drop ‘CMDR’ from gamertag when showing score summary as there’s not enough room and everyone is a commander on that screen
– If we receive a session error and we are the host to a squad, them make sure to remove the squad from matchmaking to avoid errors of being in the wrong state
– After respawning after dying in a proving ground, make sure the respawn menu is closed
– Fix for the CQC score screen staying up between matches if you have it open when the match ends
– CQC ShieldBooster multiplier too small, bumped from 4% to 10%.
– Fix an issue when trying to start a game with more players that in supports
– Fix an issue with team sorting, it was possible for the team sorting to happen when we didn’t have all the players data, so it couldn’t split into teams correctly

Ship Art:

– Modified trimesh hitcheck for targeting weapons to work on the Cutter
– Fixed hardpoint slot decal renumbering and adjusted thruster on Keelback
– Improved LODS on cargobay for all ships
– Bobble head stem fixes on some ship cockpits
– Added Low LOD lights and fixed clipping issue in Cutter cockpit
– Make sure that landing gear collision is in the right place at the right time
– Type 6 landing gears have some of the pistons broken fixed
– Type 7 landing gears have some of the pistons broken fixed
– Keelback Hardpoint door clips into thruster fixed
– Fixed UV mapping issue on the Cutter large hardpoint insets
– Fixed the landing gear on the Keelback not deploying in sync
– Added in cargo bay door and fixed some hitcheck issues for the Anaconda
– Fix for non shadow casting ship headlights (Anaconda and Cutter)
– Make the struts an interior material so they get the nicer clip plane on the Vulture cockpit
– Four types of generic utility hardpoints for use as Scanners, Shield Boosters etc
– Burning embers on permanent damage now cools off over time
– Fixed greeble issues on the Anaconda
– Fixed Anaconda chair positions and orientations
– Let the Corvette’s schematic get smaller when departing a planet surface
– Updated Scratch, Dirt maps etc to improve appearance of damaged states and fix issues with damage appearing on new ships
– Fix for Python hitcheck issue
– Fixed flipped decals on Type 6, Type 7, and Type 9
– Fixed mirrored decal on Diamondback Explorer
– Viper MkIV flipped decal fixed
– Adjustments to Imperial Cutter cockpit to fix some camera and HUD issues
– Fix for incorrect hardpoint doors opening and closing in outfitting on Type 6
– Updated Orca cockpit so bobbleheads don’t intersect broken canopy
– Fixed flipped hardpoints on Keelback
– Fixed medium hardpoints were intersecting with the weapon’s cage
– Ensure that cockpit exterior textures aren’t loaded twice
– Now the Federation Corvette has bespoke landing gear doors animations
– Decal pass on all ships
– Fixed hitcheck for the ASP scout to cover wings
– Some hitcheck fixes on the Imperial Cutter
– Fixed offset shield issues with the Vulture
– Keep clear text flipped on Corvette hull fixed
– Fixed some hitcheck issues with the Orca
– Fixed landing volumes for Asp Scout
– Fixed offset hitcheck on the hauler, also fixed the landing gear hitcheck so that it covers the doors so that the SRV won’t drive through them now
– Increased the height of the buggy bay so that it doesn’t clip when you look up in the SRV
– Updated the Eagle’s top hardpoint to not clip and be able to fire when small weapon is applied
– Updated the Imperial Cutter’s retro drive unit so that the particle fires the correct direction
– Fixed stretched texture on the front of the Type 9
– Fixed bone position on the Cutter’s rear thrusters
– Fix some issues with Sidewinder landing gear
– Fixed mirrored text and incorrectly rotated light on the Python
– Fixed an AO issue on the Type 9
– Fixed multiple issues regarding the Imperial Eagle
– Viper Paint ‘MCV2’ LOD issue fixed
– Fix a mesh issue on the Viper

Building Art:

– Fixed some flimmering decals on buildings
– Fixed offset collision on holographics
– Offset the collision more under the external planet port buttresses to stop the top of the SRV clipping
– Fixed missing geometry on a section of the science outpost
– Fixed offset collision mesh for buildings
– Fixed some lodding issues on buildings
– Buildings texture fixes
– Fixed floating decals on buildings
– Extended foundations on the Dome outbuildings to help prevent them from floating over the ground on very bumpy terrain
– Fix various floating buildings
– Added an extension to the entrance ramp to improve access to a crater base if its placed on particularly bumpy terrain
– Removed some rogue ground polygons which sometimes clipped into planetary port hangars
– Fixed intersecting text on low lod of medium sized planetary hangar
– Don’t generate small rocks within planetary ports
– Fixed offset UVs on the small planetary landing pad, which was causing textures to pop between LODs

Celestial Bodies:

– Prevent rings intersecting moons
– Make sure that a ring is not completely invisible
– Planet pops in and out of view when close to the edge of the viewport fixed
– Graphics settings-dependant rocks now placed near existing rocks to maintain patch layout, so that graphics settings now only affect the general density, rather than the pattern of placement
– Small surface rocks now generate right up to and around settlements
– Game is not waiting for physics terrain to be ready on start-up at planet fixed
– Reduce the green component of the starlight starting with surface temperatures greater than 8000K. This moves the colour scheme more towards the expected colour range for O-B stars
– Reduce the maximum brightness from the star so that not every system follows the full range. This is a loose guard to stop dim stars with a nearby frost line from having high-albedo planets in over bright conditions
– Fix the desaturated starlight target – it had been transitioning to full-grey instead of a fraction of the true/conventional colour mix
– Fix a bug where patch lighting wasn’t being generated and causing planets to render at low detail
– Disable the terrain depth prepass render nodes when the player isn’t on near/on the planet surface
– Ejecta crater basins, edges, and multiring regions play nice with each other – the subsequent craters in the array should (mostly) stamp out the previous ones
– A layer of noise from crater basins has been removed as it misbehaves for planets with large radius
– The europa line depths have been exaggerated for large planets
– Various optimisations for planet surface rendering
– Add a very low terrain option for use in environment map captures
– Optimisations for weapon effects on planet surfaces
– Improved LOD management over distance
– Enable asteroid shadow casting in ultra quality settings
– Put the rocky/metal asteroid shaders into the correct FX list, there’s no need for them to be doing any forward rendering
– Add high quality bloom settings and preset updates for new bloom settings. Currently enabled for ultra and high presets for Win64 and OSX, and also enabled for Xbox One. The previous bloom has been kept in as a cheaper medium setting
– Colour re-balance and general housekeeping for Rocky asteroid rings.
– Changed billboard colour to better match “real” rocks
– Tweaked billboard normal to give better surface detail
– Tweaked fog effects when in ring to add more “atmosphere”
– Balancing pass on Metal and Ice asteroid rings:
– Billboard diffuse textures tweaked to remove shading.
– Billboard colour matched to “real” asteroid diffuse better.
– Billboard normals given more detail.
– Ring fog boosted and balanced for greater atmosphere.
– Ring distant specular brought down into sensible ranges as much as possible
– Transition from distant ring to close up ring (in supercruise) improved to be more visually pleasing
– Fix for large surface rock rotations not matching the correct settings
– Enable asteroid SSS at medium material quality
– Change to help reduce the brightness of ice ring systems
– Texture generation workload size is now increased during System Map loads to compensate for vsync
– Fix environment map null render logic
– Fix black strip artefacts on planets
– Tweak shadow bias settings for planetary approach on ultra to reduce some blocky artefacts
– Fixed non-linear depth for stars and planets
– Fix AO artefacts due to precision issues on terrain patches
– Prevent light showing through planets that use lookup tables for atmosphere scattering, like gas giants
– Implemented alternative technique for baked shadow calculation that removes precision issues. This fixes patchy shadow artefacts on large planets
– Fix an issue where planets were using the wrong lighting when rendering sometimes
– Improve LOD calculation for surface patches
– Replace the authored ring detail texture with a generated texture which is unique for every ringed planet and does not tile
– Scale frequency of detail texture on planet rings so that rings of differing breadths have uniform detail effects
– AMD optimisation for terrain patch generation
– Asteroid billboards are now deferred. This means that the ring fog is able to interact with them correctly
– Changed how planet rings shadow. They now receive more realistic, much less diffused planet shadows. Rings background occlusion values have all been boosted as well
– Fixed the asteroids in the ring sometimes not appearing when dropping out in them
– Planet base dust is now driven from blended surface material colour
– Stop shield geometry being drawing into the environment map (was causing the planets to turn blue sometimes)
– Fix an issue where stellarforge live objects would not get a FOR shift it it happened the same frame as a location transfer, this would mean the live objects would be a few km out of position

Render:

– Fix lens flares from clipping against near plane
– Fix stereoscopic display resolution issues when using borderless window
– Fix for normal maps having an incorrect format in Win64 resource builds
– Add additional options to frame limiter and increase accuracy
– Stop beam laser light sources from flickering
– Added new VR High and Low graphics options
– Fixes for particle visuals when shadows are set to the lowest setting
– Decal rendering optimisations
– Disabling the GUI now dims the HUD lights
– Improved default HBAO settings and fixed reading settings from the graphic configuration XMLs
– Fix AO quality presets for Windows
– Changed how the size for HBAO quarter res elements was calculated in order to avoid any additional aliasing
– Added scaling for the AO radius based on the distance to the camera. This ensures that we get some HBAO contribution on far away objects in large scenes (such as station interiors and settlements).
– Environment map blending optimisations
– Rebalanced shadows for all quality levels and profiles
– Fixed the light diffusion on lit dust

VR/3D:

– Fix HMD cockpit position for ships
– Fix VR performance issue in glide mode
– Fix for no head look when in hyperspace
– Updated the main menu hangar
– Fix headlook not working when playing on a 3D TV
– Make 3D mode revert to off when options attempt to set HMD when it is not present
– Update hangar VR cameras

Steam:

– Instead of always blocking the “shift+tab” button combo for the steam overlay, look up the current steam users steam overlay binding and block that key combo in game

Stellar Forge:

– Rename some duplicate star systems
– Capitol is no longer a water world
– Change StellarForge population to match system data in LHS 2819
– Renamed CEECKIA ZQ-L C24-0 to Beagle Point
– The authored Naraka system has been renamed to Arbuda
– Renamed EACTAINDS GN-W C1-6 to Rendezvous Point
– Renamed duplicate HR 6946 to Mammon

– Fix physics crash with overheating ship and fuel scooping
– Fix softlock entering or leaving supercruise
– Fix error retrieving star data when the data hasn’t loaded yet
– Add option to hide user’s presence in rich presence
– Unable to see any notifications in the top right panel about the flag in CTF fixed
– When a player is invited into a game, try to use your squads suggested team as your suggested team, this should help the xBox backfill matchmaking make better team suggestions for new members
– Allow comms to remain open between squad mates until a CQC game starts, then it will switch over to team comms. After a match has ended it will go back to squad comms
– Fix issue with player being kicked if they’re Live data wasn’t properly initialised as the session was being created
– Activate panel controls while focussed on the scanner panel for consistency – can now use pad B to exit the focus
– Docking computer activates hardpoints and fires at station without player input
– Always show the friend options popup, even if the only options are Show Gamercard and Back. This is less confusing than just automatically showing the gamercard in some situations
– Add greater facility for binding controls
– Prevent unlocking ship-killing achievements by killing skimmers
– Fix full gamertag not being shown when targeting wing wake
– Made space for gamertag in CQC menus able to fit 15 characters wide
– To the right of Arena on Main Menu are links to Training Videos, these block Controller Navigation to Comms Contacts fixed
– Various UI performance optimisations
– Enabled HBAO by default on Xbox One
– Fix issue with video player when coming back from constrained mode
– Friends and Private Groups: Pressing B with a friend selected backs out of friends completely instead of just the sub-menu fixed

Audio – sounds for all engineer related screens
Audio – support for missions screens
Audio – Engineer base ambiences
Audio – new ambiences for underground docking bays
Audio – Audio sweeteners and changes to reflect the dynamic properties of the weapons
Audio – support for new POIs/USSs
Audio – support for new collectable items/materials
Audio – Audio support for new weapons: Huge multi-cannon, pulse and beam lasers, and large multi-cannon
Audio – support for USS scanning

Audio – Various improvements to memory management and soundbank loading
Audio – New fancy system to manage distribution of sound emitters over the area of a settlement or planet port (internally called Audio-Crowd-System!)
Audio – updated Wwise to v2015.1.5
Audio – numerous optimisations to voice count, and compression settings

We don’t think devs missed anything but let us know if there is anything that isn’t in this changelog for the latest Elite Dangerous update.